v/a Rural Psychogeography
[ ns20 / CD ]Psychogeography as a socially critical art practice could reveal itself only in the city. Psychogeographers of the sixties searched for the secret territories, where suppressed desires were particularly intense, expecting to find them primarily in the points of concentrated sociality. In these points sociality reached critical mass and broke out between the disciplinary realm of the city and a spontaneous self-actualization of an individual. As a result, the events that were provoked and captured by psychogeographers, turned out to be transgressive evidence of “the holiday of revolution”. The locales where turmoil and confusion, demonstrations of madness and mental play and other “curious occurrences” were the most frequent, held pride of place on psychogeographic maps. However, the time when the philosophy of schizy-analysis and the aesthetics of situationalism spurted out to city streets, has passed. The post-coital depression that followed the orgy discouraged and upset the participants, and they left city streets.
The resistance remains important and actual, although its methods change. It is no longer a strike; it is rather a partisan movement, “resistance through escape”. Those who are unable to accept this fact turn into terrorists, blow art up or start revolutions and rebellions in their own minds. However, the real partisans retire and hide, secluding themselves from everyone, confining themselves to external and internal country roads and wood trails, and staying off the beaten tracks where the solitude in crowd and garish sameness await the creator. The lost simplicity and naturalness are in provincial marginalias, not in carnivals of barricades.
The message/transmitter corresponds to the location of transmission. This is neither a manifest nor a general discourse; it is more of an attempt to convey the meaning in the most compressed way, for instance, through free musical improvisation. The message/transmitter itself gives an impression of the situation on the certain road or trail, and, moreover, an immediate and clear one. But what is more important, since psychogeography here is valuable by itself and does not have to pursue any other objectives, the transmitter is also valuable per se, and the message about the event that takes place within the secret territory is considered as the event itself. Herein a partisan can use the latest achievements of the civilization for the demolition of this same civilization. The result comes through as a laptop in the woods serving as the most mobile psycho-prosthesis which creates, captures, stores and transmits meanings.
City partisans keep in touch with rural psychogeographers and readily adopt their experience. As a result, an underground station in Paris all of a sudden becomes reminiscent of a country backyard filled with sounds made by domestic animals, insects, people attending to their chores, and even power supply lines. Generally speaking, any psychogeography that allows finding a valuable method of personal expression that previously seemed impossible, can be considered rural. We cannot say that the realization of personal expression is getting back on track in postmodern era, but the impossibility of realization turns into its possibility which can be carried into effect far from semantic highways and avenues. Moreover, since any expression, whether it is signed or not, is personal in one way or other, and the signed but unmade one is personal twofold, a lot of secret spots reveal themselves on country roads.
This is why the path of a rural psychogeographer is long. He will not encounter the Minotaur in the labyrinth of country roads because this labyrinth does not have a center where the Minotaur could have taken up his residence. This is why the labyrinth looks like a rhizome of surface; having entered it once, one can wander about for ever, endlessly discovering new liaisons between the well-known locations. This is why the wayfarer must take care about the durability of his footwear and take a die knife with him. The handle of this knife is located in Europe and North America, the cutting blade passes through Ukraine, and the blade end is directed towards New Zealand which is one of the most distant and at the same time most impressive secret points.
- geoff dugan – no trespassing binaural recordings near Lake Otsego rural New York State
- francisco lopez – untitled#151 created at mobile messor with materials from Patagonia / Argentina during a flight over terranova
- courtis – latencia de viento de puna made with wind recordings from Antofagasta de la Sierra
Catamarca, Argentina’s Puna - jason kahn – kreis5 dedicated to Kreis 5, Zurich / Switzerland
- andrey kiritchenko – babai (mp3) dedicated to Babai, Kharkov province / Ukraine
- tomas korber / gunter muller – beijing crossroad
based on field recordings by roland hausheer - lunt – double strapontine associated to the subway station of Matabiau in Toulouse / France
- the moglass – koktebel
dedicated to Koktebel / Crimea / Ukraine - radian – unje dedicated to island Unije / Croatia and to the cognominal village on this island. © Thrill Jockey
- tom carter & vanessa arn – mojave (mp3) Austin / Texas / United States
- martin tetreault – d’apres gaycre # 3 (mp3) dedicated to Gaycre valley / France © Socan
- rosy parlane – nica dedicated to Huia / New Zealand published by Touch Music
- steinbruchel – distanz dedicated to the village of Pontresina / Switzerland
- kim cascone – DMZspace (mp3) taken from Korean spam installation © eSpace BMI
- kotra – lost river dedicated to Lybid’ river, Kyiv / Ukraine
- kouhei & freiband – (under the) waalbrug, nijmegen recorded live august 25th, 2003 as part of Extrapool’s ‘Gekeerde Wal’ festival, Nijmegen / The Netherlands. edit by Frans de Waard
Natalia Zagurskaya
cover designed by Vitaliy Kotendgi